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Carl Yastrzemski's batting approach

Posted by
Andy

I just saw some footage of Carl Yastrzemski batting, and boy he really choked down on the bat, huh? Some of you older folks who saw him play must know, but the three things I noticed were:

A) He held the bat way, way down low, with his lower hand well past the knob.
B) The bat looked incredibly long, although the length may have been accentuated by how low he held it
C) His swing seemed remarkably unlevel for such a successful hitter.

Click through for some baseball card images I grabbed confirming how low he held the bat.

1981 Donruss #94

1981 Donruss #214

(while we're at it, why did Yaz have two '81 Donruss cards?)

1980 Topps #720

1981 Fleer #638

1982 Fleer #312

You can actually see the knob on this one

1992 Score The Franchise #3

This one he's actually much more choked up, but he's also very young in this photo. Perhaps he adjusted his approach later on.